Out of the darkness, Father speaks for me. The boy likes being alone. He's used to it.
        Mother sighs, a melancholy sound I recognize as defeat. Maybe you're right. I just . . . I just want him to have a full life, that's all.
        I have a full life! I want to cry out. But it's too late: When I open my eyes, my parents and the beetle-back Dodge have vanished. So has the electric blue swan. The swan that stares back at me now has plastic eyes and a clutch of plastic eggs that tell my fortune.
        I begin to gather up the eggs, intending to present them to my wife and children at breakfast. Look, I'll say to everyone. Look at the love here. Look at the ways our friends see us.
        Then I freeze right here on the porch, half a dozen prophetic eggs clutched to my chest. Another image has unexpectedly loomed up in my mind's eye, an image from just a few days ago, in Portland. A very different image of me and my life. An image that does not fit the scene on this porch.
        I choose not to remember it.
        Instead, I close my eyes and turn away from the picture in my mind's eye, bending both will and vision to think of something, anything else. My thoughts tumble back through a haze of blurry images to another morning, a few days before Portland, the morning the family and I moved back into the renovated house. Confusion. Exhaustion. Tall boxes, short tempers. But the house was incredible. We're going to be happy in this house, I declared to Mary in the middle of moving. She set down the box of dishes she was carrying, wiped the sweat off her brow with the back of her wrist, and smiled back at me.
        That night, when the kids were all asleep in their new beds, Mary and I dragged ourselves up the stairs to the new master bedroom. I'll be right there, I said, and patted her on the shoulder. Then I switched off the light, shut the door and locked it. In the darkness I smiled, realizing this was our very first bedroom door that actually locked. To my left was the new master bath, with two porcelain sinks and a separate tub and shower. At the far end of the room stood the sliding glass door to the new white pine balcony overlooking the backyard and the new deck. I slipped into bed beside Mary and started to whisper into her ear all the ways the beautiful house would lift our lives. She was already asleep.
        My next thoughts were not fair, to anyone, for the day had already claimed every bit of strength we each possessed. But somehow I understood.
        The house was gorgeous.
        The house would make no difference.
        Now the image dissolves, and I find myself once again standing all alone on my front porch, staring down at a plastic swan filled with welcoming, nurturing eggs. Look at the ways our friends see us. I gaze out across the park, at oak trees, picnic tables, green lawns, Little League baseball diamonds. Somewhere, out of sight and time, a neon sign buzzes. In Portland, another hand reaches for my own.         Sometimes we cannot choose what we remember.
        I gather the remaining eggs carefully into my arms and go into the beautiful new house to cook my family breakfast.

                                3